In this sensitive portrayal of human nature, Anita Desai, one of
India’s foremost writers, paints an intimate portrait of lives impacted
by the quest for identity and purpose. Deven, a Hindi lecturer in
small-town Mirpore, lives a humdrum existence. A chance to interview Nur
India’s greatest living Urdu poet offers him an escape from his dreary
life. But the Nur he meets is an enfeebled man, surrounded by clashing
wives and preying sycophants. Deven’s decision to be the custodian of
Nur’s verse gives birth to an unusual alliance between the two
Stimulating and thought provoking. In Custody is a brilliant parable
lamenting the gradual corrosion of culture and tradition in the face of
modernity and a dazzling study of the complexity of human relationships.